June 04, 2004
Name That Balkan Dictator!
It's Pop Quiz Friday here on Halfway Down the Danube, a new feature I am inaugurating in a hopel/e/s/s/ful attempt to get more comments on (and links to) this blog.
Today's question: from the following quote, can you identify the Balkan dictator this person is talking about? NB: one culturally specific word has been changed. No fair using Google.
Well, then, [blank] was dissembling, two-faced; a clever fellow with a marvellous ability to conceal his real opinion, and able to shed tears, not from any joy or sorrow, but employing them artfully when required in accordance with the immediate need, lying all the time; not carelessly, however, but confirming his undertakings both with his signature and with the most fearsome oaths, even when dealing with his own subjects. But he promptly disregarded both agreements and solemn pledges, like the most contemptible class of zek, who by fear of the tortures hanging over them are driven to confess misdeeds they have denied on oath. A treacherous friend and an inexorable enemy, he was passionately devoted to murder and plunder; quarrelsome and subversive in the extreme; easily led astray into evil ways but refusing every suggestion that he should follow the right path; quick to devise vile schemes and to carry them out; and with an instinctive aversion to the mere mention of anything good. How could anyone find words to describe [blank]'s character? These vices and many yet greater he clearly possessed to an inhuman degree; it seemed as if nature had removed every tendency to evil from the rest of mankind and deposited it in the soul of this man.
I'll give the answer later in the week.
Posted by coyu at June 4, 2004 05:24 PMThe power of G*****. ;)
Posted by: David at June 4, 2004 07:34 PMYou guys are too quick. (I'm gonna assume that at least Jake didn't use Google.) Yes, it's about Justinian, taken from Procopius's Secret History, from Williamson's lackluster translation for Penguin Classics.
It's a really clunky translation. Here's the beginning in Greek:
En toinun [ho basileus] outos eiron, doleros, kataplastos, skotios orgen, diplous anthropos...
and for the hell of it, in Italian:
[Questo imperatore] era dunque falso, ingannevole, tutto affettazione, ombroso nell'ira, ambiguo...
brackets not to represent any lacunae in the text, but to show where I changed it to [blank] in the passage.
Despite the poor translation, on reading the passage I was struck at how familiar it all sounded. (Although it would take an extremely vain and/or tasteless man to look at the Palace of the People and say, "Solomon, I have surpassed thee!" Wait a minute.)
Still, I would take Procopius with a few grains of salt. Consider this American piece of invective:
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
As far as I know, George III did not eat the flesh of his fellow man, and did not read a Star Trek novel afterwards, despite his German background. Talked to trees sometimes. But we all do that.
C.
Posted by: Carlos at June 4, 2004 11:01 PMClever. Procopius is fun to read, although I'm extremely skeptical about the Secret History. I'll have to try it in Greek sometime.
Posted by: kd5mdk at June 5, 2004 05:18 AMDoug, Claudia, Carlos -- Sorry for the off-topic comment, but I couldn't find any e-mail addresses here: I'm a reporter & weblogger from Los Angeles, and I'm coming with my French reporter wife for a three-week working vacation beginning Tuesday. We'd love to meet up; send an e-mail if you're interested. Thanks!
Posted by: Matt Welch at June 5, 2004 10:16 PM